I don't think that they were wrong in this regard. If we look at the demographics of the house of representatives, they do not come close to making a parallel of the demographics of the country. If representatives were selected at random, we'd have 51% women in the house, we'd have people from all economic backgrounds according to the current wealth disparity instead of only the wealthy. We'd need to actually focus our resources on education if we agreed that really anybody can be selected for representation. If the pool of representatives was large enough (larger than we have now, which is a limitation put in place to make party control easier), then random selection should always result in a representative body that is actually representative.
To be fair to American democracy as originally described, supermajorities were required to make big decisions (Constitutional amendments). And power was decentralized between branches of government and layers of government (state and local governments had more authority than the federal government on some matters). This design was amended and eroded over the years. One of the consequences of the movement toward a simple-majority democracy is the 'battering ram' effect you're (justifiably) complaining about.
Or just create new ones …
You say 'democracy, given its cultish appeals (e.g. "but don't you know other systems are worse!?") is simply barbaric'. Does your "quote" rebut itself as you seem to suggest? What is your non-barbaric alternative to democracy?
The literal consent of the governed is necessary for government to be legitimate.
i have been in it also, and it works just fine. i certainly do not like to be in a minority where the majority gets what it wants and the minority is steamrolled.
Imagine Hal doesn't want Bill to build a fence (to make it fun, let's say Hal isn't even going to be impacted by the fence, he just doesn't like Bill).
How does consensus handle this?
Our current system tells Hal to sit down and shut up about what Bill does on his property. If consensus is the norm, Hal has a veto on Bill's fence.
An answer about requiring people to be reasonable in a consensus government is not very satisfying, people aren't reasonable.
our current system does NOT allow Bill to do whatever he wants on his property.
Of course not. My point was that it doesn't give Hal a veto over anything Bill might want to do.
the solution is to make the pie arbitrarily large.
In Denmark, we never have to wait for long. Whenever those in power want to pass something big or important in parliament, they seek a broad support - otherwise, it'll just get repealed whenever they lose power.
Everything certainly isn't perfect here (yes, it can be darn annoying when center parties hold too much power - but then again, it is a stabilizing factor), but healthy mechanics can get you a long way with democracy.
I feel a lot of people in this thread point out cases where democracy doesn't work. That's easy. But maybe it would be better to look for cases where it does work and learn from it.
To take your example of Denmark; Denmark has less population, and half again as much area as Massachusetts. Comparisons between the US as a whole, and individual European countries don't always make the most sense; the more appropriate comparison would be to the EU, to have the same kind of multitudes of disparate people under a common banner.
We have again a situation where 51% crushes the 49%.
Also, in some countries, there are way more than 3 factions (over a dozen in Belgium and the Netherlands), making it less likely that the same subset of parties will find itself in agreement every time.
The effect of having that many factions is that the majority part of parliament will always take the minority opinion into account because they know that, in the next vote, they may be part of that minority.
Of course, that is not a guarantee; I think it is part of a nation's culture. Other countries may value the short-term "let's win this vote" way above the longer term "we have to live in this country together".
That certainly seems the case in the USA, where "in four years time, we might end up with the shorter straw." doesn't seem to play a big role in politics (?anymore?)
Democracy and religion share beds, occasionally, I might even say they were married on upon a time. Barbarism indeed.
Science says that a human being is a collection of genes which are formed at conception; it can't say anything about abortion, murder, capital punishment or self-defense. Those aren't topics on which it is competent: all it can do is inform discussions thereon, by affirming, 'yes, we are talking about a human being in this case, but in this other we are not.'
You simply can't address every issue with an appeal to science.
I honestly think social science is only slightly more scientific than astrology.
But even were it not, science is not capable of answering questions like what one ought to do. Sure, A & B disagree; it's interesting why they do; maybe they're both wrong; maybe they're both partially-correct; but what should be done about it? Science can only say what is, not what ought to be.
You have to make some philosophical assumptions (e.g. utilitarianism) in order to even think that science can provide direction, and even then you will get bogged down in questions like, 'what is the greatest good for the greatest number?'
As an aside to the downvoters: don't downvote if you think I'm wrong; please share how you think science can answer a question like 'ought we execute murderers.'
In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, democracy rarely seeems to come to any consensus that is acceptable to everyone, but rather serves as little more than a moral battering ram that the 51% can use to impose their will on the 49%. Perhaps one day people will realize that democracy, given its cultish appeals (e.g. "but don't you know other systems are worse!?") is simply barbaric.
Maybe technology will render nation-states obsolete within my lifetime. I can only hope.